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“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.” ― Paul Krugman

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Hi, I'm Bret. I'm a very Progressive Liberal. I believe in the truth behind science and mathematics. I believe supposed "creationists" are just too ignorant to understand actual science, and fall back to their magic storybook because real science is too hard for their itsy-bitsy lizard brains. I believe in equality for all people; straight, gay, bi, trans, white, black, brown it does not matter. We are all humans on this Earth for a limited time. Celebrate diversity and enjoy with other's bring to your life. End of story. ;-)

Friday, August 22, 2008

By Seth Colter Walls

A new ad raising Barack Obama's ties to 60s-era radical William Ayers may violate election law, according to campaign finance experts interviewed by the Huffington Post.

The spot, released by the America Issues Project (an incorporated 501c(4) committee, according to a report by Politico's Ben Smith), intersperses images of Obama and Ayers, and features a narrator asking, "Why would Barack Obama be friends with someone who bombed the Capitol and is proud of it? Do you know enough to elect Barack Obama?"

"This negative campaign ad is clearly express advocacy, and under a federal law passed in 2003, the Bi-Partisan Campaign Reform Act (known colloquially as McCain-Feingold), it cannot legally be paid for with corporate money, including those of a non-profit," said Laura MacCleery, deputy director of the democracy program at the Brennan Center for Justice. "The ad indisputably concerns an election, takes a position on the character and fitness for office of a candidate, and raises no legislative issue. Even this highly skeptical Supreme Court would turn up its noses at the foul odor emitted by this clear abuse of federal election law."

Toby Keith, perhaps best known to non-country audiences for his post-Sept. 11 song "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue," says he's a Democrat, and was impressed by the senator from Illinois.

Keith has said in the past that the 2002 song _ which included lines aimed at the Taliban like "we lit up your world like the Fourth of July" _ was more patriotic than pro-war.

Asked while promoting his new movie "Beer For My Horses" about the role of patriotism in the current presidential election, Keith replied: "There's a big part of America that really believes that there is a war on terrorism, and that we need to finish up.

"So I thought it was beautiful the other day when Obama went to Afghanistan and got educated about Afghanistan and Iraq. He came back and said some really nice things....(Click here for remainder of article).

As was pointed out yesterday by the Christian Science Monitor, the McCain campaign was called out for lying about the purported urging of Cindy McCain by Mother Teresa herself to adopt two children at her orphanage back in 1991. Turns out, McCain never met or even spoke with Mother Teresa on that trip.

Once confronted by the Monitor about the deception, the campaign quickly erased such claims from the website, as it did with Cindy's family recipes, which were proved to be lifted from the Food Network.

But after doing some research, this deception was no careless accident, but rather another shameless and deliberate attempt by the campaign to reinvent and embellish the McCain family history in time for his 2008 presidential bid.

Here's how the McCain adoption was described by them prior to the 2008 presidential race:

To Pastor Rick Warren's question, Obama says someone making more than $250,000. McCain gives a figure of $5 million per year. His campaign says he was joking.

By Greg Miller, Los Angeles Times Staff WriterAugust 18, 2008

WASHINGTON -- The rich may be different for John McCain and Barack Obama.

On almost every issue, the two presidential candidates have staked out opposing positions. Their contrasting views on wealth surfaced during their back-to-back appearances in Southern California on Saturday night when each was asked to define "rich."

Obama didn't hesitate. "I would argue that if you are making more than $250,000, then you are in the top 3, 4 percent of this country," he said. "You are doing well."

McCain took a far more discursive approach to answering the question but ultimately settled on a dramatically higher figure: "I think if you're just talking about income, how about $5 million?"

The Arizona Republican quickly added that he was "sure that comment will be distorted," and his campaign said Sunday that he was joking.

Even so, the remark highlighted the candidates' disparate outlooks. Analysts who study income distribution said the answers appeared to reflect shifting political calculations more than economic reality.

Economists said in interviews Sunday that neither candidate was wrong because there are no agreed-upon definitions for the terms that describe income segments....(Click here for remainder of article).

Yesterday, when asked by reporters how many homes he owns, McCain responded, "I think -- I'll have my staff get to you."

This is the latest in a string of striking and revealing comments by McCain. Recently he said that from his perspective "the fundamentals of our economy are strong" right now, then he said that millionaires are not rich as long as they're making less than $5 million a year.

Today, the Obama campaign launched a television ad exposing just how out-of-touch McCain is with the realities American families face.

In an economy where millions of Americans are sinking under high mortgages and rising gas prices, we can't afford another president who doesn't get it.

In John McCain's world, the limits on campaign contributions should rise with inflation, but the minimum wage should not. In fact, he believes there shouldn't be any increase at all in the minimum wage.

How can he help the middle class when he doesn't know who they are? And how can he fix the economy if he doesn't know it's broken?

McCain's money may have bought him a lot of houses, but there's one house we can't afford to let McCain add to his list: the White House. Not on our watch.

Please watch the Obama campaign's ad and write a letter to your local papers about how out-of-touch John McCain is with economic realities: